Page 44 - Studio International - July 1966

The element of caprice

London commentary by Edward Lucie-Smith

It often seems to me that the thing in modern art which summer sculptures by Richard Smith which I illustrate
we most tend to underrate is the element of the playful, here. These are 'follies' almost in the eighteenth-century
the entertaining. We like to take our culture-heroes very sense of the term, but follies of a highly practical kind—
seriously. Luckily, the artists are not always to be brow- made of canvas, a few wooden poles, a little rope, and
beaten by this. It would be difficult (or, rather, ludicrous) some tent-pegs. I long to see them carried out : they
to put too serious an interpretation on the Projects for would surely be everything that is gay and airy. And
they would, I feel certain, look perfectly at home in a
setting of trees and lawns.
This cannot be said for a good deal of the work now on
view at the BATTERSEA OPEN AIR SCULPTURE EXHIBITION.
The 'New Generation' sculptors have been included for
the first time, and some of their offerings look sad
indeed—at once gaudy and diminished. I find this
failure odd because the aesthetic which informs the new
sculpture is also very much that which we find in the
work of Richard Smith—and his projects, as I have said,
would obviously fit the natural setting perfectly.
Perhaps it's simply a question of designing the work of
art to fit the place and the circumstances. Another
successful 'folly' —now, alas, destroyed—was the 'concrete
poem' which I also show from Ian Hamilton Finlay's
garden at Ardgay in Ross-shire. The photograph makes
it clear, I think, how beautifully this work fitted its
setting. Simply constructed, and made of materials con-
gruous to the spot, it was at once a commentary on its
surroundings, and a means of making those surroundings
collaborate in the purposes of the artist. A pity that he
has now been forced to leave.
Hamilton Finlay's work, and Richard Smith's, do, of
course, form an extension of a topic which I was talking
about last month—temporary architecture. Smith's pro-
jects, for instance, are made to be put up and taken
down at the owner's whim. This seems to me an excellent
idea : an immense park is needed for follies in the
eighteenth-century sense, but these would be at home in a
back garden. No chance of them becoming boring or
beginning to weigh upon the spirit. At the slightest sign
of oppression or ennui, the fortunate owner can abolish
them, at least until such time as appetite returns. Or else
he can have a whole series of follies built upon one and
the same spot, yet each able to be stored, and if need
be resurrected almost instantly. Caprice is sedulously
catered for.
The element of the intuitive and the capricious does,
though in a more conventional way, have a place in
certain exhibitions current in London. Bridget Riley's
drawings and projects, on view (to July 9) at the
ROBERT FRASER GALLERY, show how big a part intuitive
choices have to play in a kind of art which has been
labelled purely scientific. What I like about this is the
return to an attitude which we find in the Old Masters.
The artist does not despise his own spontaneous reactions;
but he also has the urge to make something which is
more than these reactions, which goes beyond them in
some way. A fully 'completed' work by Miss Riley is
something different in intention from her slighter things,
but is not divorced from them. One grows from the
other—the two impulses are held in balance.

Richard Smith Three Projects for summer sculptures 1966
Each 17 x 14 in. Top: pencil and crayon. Bottom left: pencil and
crayon. Bottom right: pencil, crayon, ink, and silver foil
Kasmin Gallery